Image: Dylan Thomas Boat House in Laugharne is among recipients © Carmarthenshire County Council
The funding has been developed in response to museums’ most urgent needs.
The Museum of Making in Derby, Birmingham Museum Trust and The People’s Palace in Glasgow are among the recipients of grants from Art Fund designed to support museums reliant on local authority funding, following Art Fund’s Museum Directors Survey 2024 revealing that two thirds of museums are worried about their future and other sector research.
Over £800,000 has been awarded to 20 museums and galleries through Art Fund’s Reimagine grants programme, developed in consultation with museums, with an additional £200,000 distributed through Museum Development UK (MDUK) to support museums and projects.
Projects include sensory exhibitions for disabled and neurodivergent adults at MK Gallery in Milton Keynes; behind-the-scenes tours for rurally isolated groups at Fermanagh County Museum in Northern Ireland, and Manchester Art Gallery loaning artworks to local schools.
Yesterday, Art Fund’s Director Jenny Waldman said the newly announced Autumn budget “falls short of addressing the urgent and long-term challenges facing the sector, particularly for civic museums,” and said Art Fund would “make the case for long-term investment in all UK museums”.
The charity has said it will continue to support the English Civic Museums Network (ECMN) in its request for £20m in emergency funding to save the most at-risk civic museums from closure. It has also called for an enquiry into regional museum funding, and local authority settlements that enable sustained support.
Art Fund is also continuing its partnership with Museum Development UK (MDUK) into 2025. £200,000 of the total £1m announced today has been awarded through MDUK to smaller museums and projects, adding to more than £290,000 distributed in small grants to 110 museums last year.
The full list of recipients of the 2024 round of Reimagine grants
| ORGANISATION | PROJECT NAME | LOCATION | GRANT |
| Turner Contemporary | Turner Contemporary Young Environmental Leaders | Margate, Kent, England | £50,000 |
| The Bowes Museum | Re-imagining The Bowes Museum’s story with our local communities | Barnard Castle, County Durham, England | £49,989 |
| Birmingham Museums Trust | Collections in the Community | Birmingham, England | £49,728 |
| Gallery Oldham | Our Beautiful Oldham | Oldham, Greater Manchester, England | £46,000 |
| De La Warr Pavillion | Transforming Heritage: Community, Creativity and Skills. | Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex, England | £45,000 |
| Derby Museums (Museum of Making) | Reimagining partnerships through a wool takeover at the Museum of Making | Derby, England | £45,000 |
| Manchester Art Gallery | Developing the Rutherston Loan Scheme for the 21st Century | Manchester, England | £45,000 |
| Your Trust Rochdale | Side-by-side | Rochdale, Greater Manchester, England | £45,000 |
| Ikon Gallery | Ikon Creative Health | Birmingham, England | £44,000 |
| Fermanagh County Museum | Art In Our Hands | Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland | £42,000 |
| Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums | Community Forum | Tyneside, England | £41,550 |
| Bristol Museums | Towards New Ecologies | Bristol, England | £40,000 |
| MK Gallery | Sensory Exhibition Engagement | Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England | £40,000 |
| Museums Northumberland (Hexham Old Gaol) | Reimagining England’s first purpose-built Gaol in partnership with Hexham’s Communities and illustrator, Jonny Hannah | Hexham, Northumberland, England | £40,000 |
| RCT Heritage Service | Partnership working in Rhondda Cynon Taf: Developing a sustainable Heritage Forum | Rhondda Cynon Taf, Wales | £40,000 |
| Museum of Wigan Life | New Perspectives – reframing Wigan collections in the digital sphere | Wigan, Greater Manchester, England | £39,986 |
| CofGâr (Dylan Thomas Boathouse) | Dylan Thomas Boathouse Creative Hub | Laugharne, Camarthen, Wales | £39,643 |
| Tees Valley Museums | Collections inspired playscapes | The Tees Valley, England | £30,450 |
| Hartlepool Art Gallery | Beneath The Surface | Hartlepool, County Durham, England | £17,445 |
| The People’s Palace | Reimagining the People’s Palace | Glasgow, Scotland | £10,000 |
